Raver’s Blazer

Demonstration Video:

Description – The Raver’s Blazer is the must have blazer for your night out. Be the LIGHT of the party with the push of a button. With one simple click the Raver’s Blazer will activate making your lapels, sleeves, pockets, and breast pocket light up with near 100 super bright LEDs. Colors and patterns are always changing keeping the the blazer as fresh as the music all night. If you run out of juice, just plug it into your cell phone charger and keep the party going.
This blazer is lined with LED strips on the pockets, lapels, breast pocket, and around the sleeves. The leds are powered by a portable USB battery located within the blazer. The patterns and colors are controlled via an Arduino Uno board also embedded in the blazer.

Tools Used:

• Phillip Screwdriver
• Crimper
• Wire Stripper
• End Nippers
• Solder Gun and materials
• Multimeter
• Dremel
• Gaffer Tape
• Electrical Tape
• Heat Gun
• Scissors
• Hot Glue Gun with Glue Sticks
• Fabric Glue

SOURCE CODE (click)

Conceptual Animated Gif of LED Zones:



Prototype + Building Stages:

Obstacles:
Power Supply – We had difficulty finding a portable battery that could power the LED strips as well as the Arduino board. The battery could not add too much weight to the jacket and also had to have the right amperage to to power the blazer. Our solution to this problem was using a portable usb charger. The battery could be recharged via usb which made easy for anyone to power on.
Blazer – The blazer needed to have multiple pockets that could carry the external batteries and Arduino. Also it needed to be thick enough so one cannot see an outline of the wiring, LED’s, and batteries.
Metallic Lamé – Metallic lame is a highly reflective cloth-like material. It would cause the lights to seem much brighter. It is very conductive as well which made us hesitant to line the blazer with it since the is a lot of wiring with the blazer. After some research we concluded it would be much of an issue.
Single Core Wire VS Stranded – The blazer was initially wired with single core cabling. We soon realized that single core cabling is not as flexible and caused a loss in some signal. We then replaced the cabling with stranded wire.
LED Selection – The LEDs needing to be RGB and be very flexible due to the movement of the user. Each LED needed to be individually controllable as well.
Sound Activation – The blazer was initially going to be sound active but due to time constraints we had to bypass this feature.
Team (Credits):
Dwayne Carolina – Documentation, budget maintenance, supplies.
Michael Sauder – Documentation, research, programming, wiring, supplies, Arduino enclosure.
Randi Sobhan – Documentation, supplies, final video, actor.
Denis Zepeda – Documentation, blazer wiring & handling, supplies, demo video, battery enclosures.